How Does Training Contribute to Workplace Safety? A Meta-Analysis Examining the Effects of Safety Training

Bisbey, Tiffany
Linhardt, Rylee M.
Woods Herron, Amanda
Kilcullen, Molly P.
Salas, Eduardo

Department of Organizational Sciences and Communication, The George Washington University
Department of Psychological Sciences, Rice University
Leadership Institute, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Armstrong Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Gillian Yeo served as action editor.

Data and materials for this study are available in online Supplemental Materials or by emailing the corresponding author, Tiffany Bisbey. This work was supported in part by the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center, at Houston (Grant UL1TR003167).

Tiffany Bisbey played a lead role in conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, supervision, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing. Rylee M. Linhardt played a supporting role in data curation, formal analysis, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing. Amanda Woods Herron played a supporting role in conceptualization, data curation, and writing–original draft. Molly P. Kilcullen played a supporting role in data curation. Eduardo Salas played a supporting role in conceptualization, funding acquisition, project administration, resources, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing.

Tiffany Bisbey, Department of Organizational Sciences and Communication, The George Washington University, 600 21st Street NW, Washington, DC 20052, United States [email protected]

Received August 29, 2023

revised June 11, 2025

Accepted June 12, 2025

Journal of Applied Psychology Publish Ahead of Print, July 24, 2025. | DOI: 10.1037/apl0001309

Although workplace safety concerns are often addressed with employee safety training, organizational research has yet to provide a critical examination into the extent to which safety training impacts outcomes. This meta-analysis examines the training literature across industries to evaluate the effects of safety training on the antecedents and indicators of workplace safety. We extracted 666 effects from 157 independent studies and coded for the content of safety training (technical or nontechnical expertise), the motivational strategy employed (promotive or preventive focus), and the stakeholder of the intervention (employees/internal stakeholder or external stakeholder safety). Findings suggest that safety training has an overall positive effect on training outcomes (δ = 0.78), demonstrating medium-to-large effects on trainee reactions (δ = 0.92), learning (δ = 1.18), and transfer (δ = 0.61) and smaller effects on overall safety indicators (δ = 0.26), including organizational safety (δ = 0.20) and individual health and well-being outcomes (δ = 0.15). Findings suggest that both technical and nontechnical training, as well as promotion- and prevention-focused training, contribute to improved safety via different mechanisms. Moreover, effect sizes appear generally weaker for training that is focused on improving the safety of external stakeholders compared to employee safety-based programs. We contribute an integrative framework for safety training effectiveness and offer recommendations for future research to extend theory on workplace safety and safety training.